We are a kindergarten class at Rayburn STEAM Academy in Grand Praire, Texas

Friday, July 22, 2016

Chemistry week at the Advanced STEM Institute- July 18-21

This week began my 2016-2017 journey with Kosmos Energy STEM Academy through Perot. We met at the Faire Park Science Museum, we did lots of experiments heard some good people talk about different jobs and careers, and went on a few trips to places.

On Monday we studied Thermochemistry. We did 2 labs, 1. Heat fusion of ice 2. Flaming Cheetos. Both were labs I had never seen before and according to our calculations we did a very good job! These labs included a lot of equations I was not familiar with so with the help of my team we had to complete together.

On Tuesday the day was split until 2 parts...morning and afternoon.
In the morning we completed different stations:
1. "Pour without pouring"- we mixed hydrogen peroxide and baking soda and with the gas was able to put out a flame on a candle.
2. Burning the match- measuring a burnt match to a unburned match. The burnt match has less mass.
3. Flame under mason jar- The flame created some condensation on the jar
4. Epson salt burning- we poured salt into bottle caps and held one of the caps over a candle. We noticed the salt we held over the candle sizzled and hardened. When comparing mass it has less mass than the unburned one.

In the afternoon we got on a bus and headed to a Field Trip to the Perot Museum. We had 2 assignments while at the museum. The first one included Gems and looking at a periodic table and marking the most seen elements that make up the Gems and Minerals and filling out a questionnaire on the back. The 2nd part was Field Trip planning. I have never taken my Kindergartens to the Perot on a trip but I dont see why we couldn't in the future. The trip I planned for be a Spring trip when we are discussing living/non-living and animals needs and coverings. The Perot offers 2 floors that would be perfect for that trip. The 2nd floor has the animals and the top floor has the birds.

On Wednesday we dove into the Periodic table/atoms/elements. These I am also not familiar with as it has been YEARS since I have seen or heard about the concepts being talked about this day. It was a hard day to stay on track with the experiments and labs but I tried to keep up with my group and re-learn some new material I have forgotten over the years. One of the activities that was fun and I could tweak was a hidden box puzzle. We had puzzles we had to solve in order to get keys to open a box which held a treasure chest.

On my last day, Thursday I had a good time exploring new experiments listening to new people and visiting a new place. We started by making "Elephant toothpaste." It was a fun experiment and I know kinders would love to see that! In the afternoon 2 Pizza Hut Food Scientist came to talk to us. I had never heard of this career or heard of people being able to get a PHD in cheese! It would be cool to have these types of careers show up for career days since they are the more unknown ones so the littles can see other careers available. We also did a Paleo lab visit. I found this very interesting. It was cool to be surrounded by real dinosaur bones and hear his stories. I could see LOTS of my boys and girls in my class love to hear those stories and see those bones!